Free Republic

Following the disastrous shutdowns in states like New York and New Jersey, lawmakers may want to emulate Pennsylvania’s constitutional remedy.Before the COVID-19 outbreak, state sovereignty was viewed as a check on federal encroachment. Americans welcomed this limit on centralized power. But amid the ongoing panic, the coercive effects of unbridled executive authority are on display in the states themselves. This authoritarian streak is evident in New York, California, and Michigan, and my home state, Pennsylvania, where Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf’s shutdown orders—enforced through emergency powers—have flung economic shrapnel. Wolf’s restrictions, some of the most draconian in the country, have inflicted...

“We know more about the surface of the Moon and about Mars than we do about the deep sea floor,” oceanography Paul Snelgrove said. This new episode aims to shine a bit of light into the deeps.

Carano fell under heavy criticism after she posted that “Jews were beaten in the streets, not by Nazi soldiers but by their neighbors…. even by children.” The actor continued to say, “Because history is edited, most people today don’t realize that to get to the point where Nazi soldiers could easily round up thousands of Jews, the government first made their own neighbors hate them simply for being Jews. How is that any different from hating someone for their political views?” Carano, a former mixed martial artist whose Dune character used a mix of heavy weapons and her fists to...

Thursday, Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) sounded off on the Senate impeachment of former President Donald Trump. Booker, during CNN’s “New Day,” said he believes “we do not need more evidence to come to the conclusion that Trump violated his oath of office.” He pointed to Trump’s rally, his “prolific tweeting,” and then subsequent silence as a group of his followers were hunting for former Vice President Mike Pence and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA).

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said on Wednesday night that the Senate may “relitigate” the brouhaha between Sen. Mike Lee and the impeachment managers after Lee objected to how the managers characterized a report about a call former President Donald Trump made to Lee’s phone during the Capitol riot. After making their argument over the last two days that Trump should be convicted of inciting an insurrection on the Capitol, the House impeachment managers will continue their case on Thursday. They may take up to eight hours, starting at noon, but it’s unclear if they will use all of their...

It's the spread renowned for its 'Love it or hate it' slogan and now Marmite is about to get even more controversial by launching a tongue-burning chilli flavour. British makers Unilever is expanding its Marmite line-up with limited-edition Marmite Dynamite. The new product combines Marmite with chilli and is said to provide an 'explosion of flavour'. Unilever said Marmite fans had been experimenting with chilli and Marmite combinations on social media, and the brand wanted to 'give the people what they want', as it did with the first Marmite Peanut Butter launch in 2019. The makers say the new spread...

Windham New Hampshire recount finds Dominion voting machines shorted Republicans, All 4 Republicans lost approx 300 votes, Town recount coming? “The only reason to change software after the election would be to obfuscate evidence of fraud and/or to correct program errors that would de-certify the election. Our findings show that the Central Lake Township tabulator tape totals were significantly altered by utilizing two different program versions (10/23/2020 and 11/05/2020), both of which were software changes during an election which violates election law, and not just human error associated with the Dominion Election Management System. This is clear evidence of software...

After reportedly confirming to The Athletic that he canceled the national anthem, then having the league step in and order him to play it, Mavericks Owner Mark Cuban has decided that he never canceled the anthem after all. In a Wednesday interview with ESPN’s The Jump, Cuban said that the team was having an ongoing dialogue about the anthem but “probably would have ended up playing it at some point when fans came back.” The only trouble with that is that there were some fans in attendance at American Airlines Arena on Monday night and, just like the other Dallas...

One arena of US executive power that the media establishment is glad to have return to its pre-Trump mode is White House press relations, embodied in Joe Biden press secretary Jen Psaki. Former President Donald Trump’s press secretaries, like Sean Spicer with his iffy Holocaust history (Vox, 4/11/17) and mendacious Kayleigh McEnany (Vanity Fair, 1/26/21), turned any given White House press conference into a Terry Gilliam fever dream. Any spokesperson for the new administration might seem like a bit of fresh air after such lunacy. But let’s be cautious. There has certainly been corporate media fanfare over what journalists...

Paul Grisham spent some of his time in the Navy serving as a meteorologist at McMurdo Station in Antarctica. In 1968, he was sent to the continent where he spent 13 months monitoring the weather for incoming planes and ships carrying personnel, equipment, and other supplies. Speaking to the SAN DIEGO UNION TIBUNE, Grisham said: “McMurdo Station was in what we called the ‘banana belt,’ the temperature got up to about 25 degrees and I’ve seen it as cold as minus 65,” he said. “It’s almost inconceivable just how cold it is. It’s almost impossible to describe to people who...

The hashtag #CancelDisneyPlus became a top trend late Wednesday on Twitter after Lucasfilm fired actress Gina Carano from the cast of the popular Disney Plus-Star Wars spinoff series The Mandalorian. Her firing came after Carano shared a social media post that critics say downplayed the experience of Jews during the Holocaust. “Jews were beaten in the streets, not by Nazi soldiers buy by their neighbors… even by children,” read one of Carano’s social media posts in question, according to a purported screenshot. “‘Because history is edited, most people today don’t realize that to get to the point where Nazi soldiers...

Men who identify as women often have a distinct physiological advantage over their fellow female opponents that cannot be denied.MADISON, Wis. — Sherry Mix puts in 10 to 15 hours a week training for elite-level mountain and fat-tire bike races in the region. The Verona, Wis. woman says it’s hard work but rewarding to the women who ride.But as “equity” politics are further infused into just about every aspect of life, including competitive sports, cyclists like Mix are forced to compete on an unequal course. Last month, Mix finished third in a Snow Crown Fat Bike Series event in De...

The Ohio Department of Health announced late Wednesday that as many as 4,000 COVID-19 deaths may have gone unreported by the agency, and said it planned to make the adjustments in the coming week. The 6 p.m. news release came two days after cleveland.com questioned why some reports from the Centers for Disease Control showed Ohio with about 4,000 more deaths than what the state had been reporting. It was unclear from Wednesday’s announcement if this was related. The state did not respond to the cleveland.com question from Monday. The state to date has reported 11,856 deaths since the onset...

Tokyo Olympic chief Yoshiro Mori will resign after making sexist remarks that sparked global outrage, people familiar with the matter said Thursday, resulting in a rare leadership transition less than six months to go until the opening of the rescheduled games amid the coronavirus pandemic. Saburo Kawabuchi, a former president of the Japan Football Association, told reporters he is ready to accept a request by the Olympic organizing committee to take over the top job from Mori.

Google has quietly escalated censorship of its market-dominating search engine, adding a range of new topics where human moderators are allowed to manually penalize websites, suppressing them in search results. If a website is affected by one of these manual acts of censorship, “some or all of that site will not be shown in Google search results,” according to the tech giant. SNIP Publishers who have been hit with a manual action by Google will be able to appeal the decision by “fixing” whatever issue violated the policy and then submitting their website to Google for a review. Google states...

The Georgia State Election Board voted unanimously Wednesday to move forward with an investigation of U. S. Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.) for his role serving as board chairman of a voter registration organization founded by Stacey Abrams that election officials say failed to follow deadlines, in what appears to be the latest legal step in the ongoing feud between the progressive Abrams and the state’s Republican election officials. Warnock served as chairman of the board for the New Georgia Project in 2019 when election officials claim misconduct took place. Under Georgia election rules, voting registration organizations like the New Georgia...

House Democrats on Wednesday introduced a chilling new video at former President Trump’s impeachment trial showing Capitol Police Officer Eugene Goodman redirecting Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) in the halls of the Senate to protect him from the mob storming the Capitol. Democrat Stacey Plaskett, a delegate from the Virgin Islands, narrated the never-before-seen footage. In the video, Romney can be seen striding toward the Senate chamber. Goodman is running toward him and can be seen shouting orders at him as he passes, causing Romney to quickly turn around and run for safety.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A woman who claims she was sexually abused by Jeffrey Epstein and is expected to testify against Ghislaine Maxwell at her criminal trial need not disclose how much she is being compensated to resolve claims against Epstein’s estate, a U.S. judge ruled on Wednesday. U.S. District Judge Lorna Schofield in Manhattan ruled in favor of Annie Farmer, who like many Epstein accusers sought to dismiss her lawsuit against the late financier’s estate in order to obtain a confidential settlement from a victims’ compensation program. Maxwell’s lawyers objected to a dismissal, saying a big settlement would give...

In his first three weeks in office, President Joe Biden has made a flurry of phone calls to American allies around the world, including the leaders of Canada, Britain, France and Japan. But one close American ally’s leader has so far been left conspicuously off the new president’s call list: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. While it is clear that Biden has his hands full with a myriad domestic challenges, every day the phone doesn’t ring adds to concerns in Israel that Netanyahu is being frozen out by the new Democratic administration because of his close ties with Donald Trump...

Chris mentioned this today. The resemblance is astonishing! LOL